B.C. logs come ‘off probation’ in China market

By Bill Mann

British Columbia untreated logs are now “off probation” in China.

This week’s announcement that raw, untreated hemlock logs can now be shipped to China without being treated for pests has raised big hopes that it will revivify the slumping logging industry in that western province’s northwestern forests.

It’s the second piece of major business news this week involving booming China-B.C. commerce: The world’s largest bank, government-owned Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, announced this week it’s opening six branches in Vancouver and Toronto.

The logging story, though, will likely create the most controversy, with environmental groups charging Canada is shipping away its natural resources and logging groups needing the business and jobs.

Milling jobs aren’t being lost, forest-industry consultant Brian Zak told the Vancouver Sun, since it’s raw logs that will now be shipped year-round into China through two ports, Putian (in Fujian province) and Taicang, near Shanghai. Previously, China only accepted untreated B.C. logs during the winter months, and they all went through Putian, where they were fumigated.

Zak said the expanded trade in low-grade logs — for which there is little demand in North America — should create new jobs in trucking, logging and longshoring in northern B.C.

Wayne Drury, the head of the largest logging company in the Prince Rupert, B.C., area, Coast Tsimshian Resources (owned by a local First Nations tribe) said the China deal is a big net plus for local jobs, explaining, “We have very few opportunities to sell to the local market. There are no sawmills left in this area, and the pulp mill here closed for good.”

“The reason that our exports were seasonal before,” Zak explained, “is that the Chinese did not have a familiarity or comfort factor with logs or pests that might have been associated with them. We were basically on probation with our logs.”

Canada’s logs have now gotten a clean bill of health from China.

If you listen closely, you might even soon hear the merry refrain of Monty Python’s “I’m a Lumberjack” out in the forests near Prince Rupert, B.C.